There are a variety of different types of display hooks that are presently in wide use. One type of display hook is a “scanner hook” of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,452,360 to Barnes. The scanner hook includes a lower horizontally extending hanger bar for supporting merchandise and an upper parallel bar for supporting a label that includes a price tag which may be “read” by an electronic scanning wand.
Unfortunately, these display hooks by themselves provided little or no theft deterrence to shoplifters. Particularly, shoplifters will steal product by a method know as sweeping. The shoplifter will “sweep” the entire product supported by the lower hanger bar from the display hook in a single motion into a container such as a purse or bag. This method of shoplifting occurs very quickly and results in a significant loss of product. Security display locks have been developed to prevent sweeping by securing or locking the merchandise on the display hook. Such display locks include U.S. Pat. No. 6,957,555 to Nagel et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 6,393,877 to Church; U.S. Pat. No. 5,275,027 to Eklof et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,027,622 to Hatch et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 7,197,902 to Barkdoll; and U.S. Pat. No. 7,743,931 to Barkdoll. The present invention relates to improvements in display locks as it relates to theft prevention, reliability, adaptability, practicality, ease-of-use, and/or cost effectiveness.